Peter Kramer

Peter Kramer

(1968- ) Diocese:

Regensburg, Germany

Current Status:suspended

Location: Prison

Peter Kramer, ordained in 1997, abused two boys in 1999. In 2000 he was convicted in a non-public
trial, sentenced to probation, and ordered to go to therapy and keep away from children. But
he soon started working in a parish; his work with children was the subject of newspaper articles
the diocese saved.

His bishop, relying upon a good report from the therapist, officially appointed
Kramer a pastor in 2004, two years after German bishops solemnly promised never again to appoint
a convicted abuser to work with children. The bishop told no one about the conviction; Kramer
cultivated the boys of the parish. Kramer’s past was revealed in summer 2007. In the fall of
2007 he was accused of abuse in his new parish; in March 2008 he pleaded guilty to the charges
of abuse. The bishop said that he acted properly in appointing Kramer; Pope Benedict seemed
to agree.

In June 1997, Peter Kramer, a former auto mechanic, and a “delayed vocation,” was ordained by Bishop Manfred Müller for the diocese of Regensburg in southern Germany. In September 1997, he was stationed at the village of Viechtach.

On April 6, 1999, Bishop Manfred Müller removed Kramer from his parish without any explanation. He sent the priest to a clinic for three months. The Vicar General of the diocese, Michael Fuchs, told the Treimers that no legal action should follow. “I feared that the children would have to testify in public. The boy was completely disturbed, slept badly, and had to cry a lot,”2Jörg Klotzek, “Kaplan missbraucht Buben – und wird Pfarrer,” Passauer Neue Presse, July 26, 2007. Joanna later said. The family decided not to go to the police.

In November 1999, the Treimers, Kramer, and diocesan officials came to an agreement:
Kramer paid the children 5,000 marks (then about $3,000) in damages (Schmerzengeld).
The parents asked that there be no publicity for the sake of the children and signed
an agreement not to speak of the affair.

From February 2001 to August 2004, records show the administrator of the parish was
the pastor in neighboring Schönach, Helmut Grüneisl. Though the diocese must have known
that Kramer was the only priest working in the parish, it did not inform Grüneisl of
Kramer’s past. As Grüneisl approached retirement, he asked the diocese several times
whether Kramer could be his successor. He was informed that Kramer had a history of
heart and lung problems, and his health was questionable. Though Grüneisl thought Kramer’s
intense interest in the youth of the parish was “strange” (komisch), he had no reason
to suspect anything was wrong.

Gerhard Ludwig Müller was a professor of theology at Munich and friend of the Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez. Together, they co-authored a book titled An
der Seite der Armen (On the Side of the Poor). Müller also is an editor of the collected works of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Müller opined that divorced and remarried Catholics can, under some conditions, be readmitted to communion without a formal annulment. Müller is therefore not a reactionary, but he has defended the limitation of ordination to men as theologically-based. His work attracted the Vatican’s eye, and in October 2002, Pope John Paul II appointed him bishop of Regensburg.